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Adebola Journal 5
11 Years Ago “I’ll never understand why you settled in this comfy little slice of hell,” Anya tilted her chair back so far that, if she was anyone else, it would have toppled. It was a quiet day, every normal market sound muted by the endless summer rain. Duante busied himself cleaning a battered pistol that dated back to the previous century. “It isn’t like you,” mused Anya. “You always were such a part of the action. I don’t think I ever see you these days with a pretty piece of tail like you used to get, back in the day. Remember that little red-haired elf in Seattle? I didn’t hear from you for three weeks, and then, it was on to someone else.” She sharpened her gaze on him. “So why’d you leave, Du? There’s a new kid on the team these days, but nothing like you were. We’d welcome you back, in a heartbeat.” He met her eyes and shook his head. “Keep your tusks out of my business, Anya.” His voice was mild but the warning was clear. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d corrected her pronunciation of his name; by now, he just accepted it. She ignored it. “Yeah, we had a bad run. Everyone does, now and then. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going. Unless…” She narrowed her eyes at him. Duante concentrated on keeping his face utterly blank. He was truly awful at poker. She jerked the chair back even further and it shattered under her. In any other situation, it would have been wildly funny to watch her try to pick herself out of its ruins with her dignity intact. She struggled to her feet, her eyes wide. “You think Jakob is still out there! You don’t think he died in the explosion and you think he’s still out there looking for you.” Duante jumped to his feet and shoved her towards the door. Even with his cyber-enhanced arms, it was like trying to push a tank. “Get out,” he said. “You’ve got no clue what the hell you’re talking about.” Anya never did listen to him. She squinted out the window as if expecting to see Jakob and all his black-hearted thugs watching them. “You’d never have left the shadows. It was all you loved. You’d never put yourself into a shit hole like this unless you were hiding from something. But you’re still in touch with your old team, as friends. It makes me wonder: why? I could have led Jakob right to you, couldn’t I? But you aren’t any more twitchy than usual. So what’s going on?” She sat down in another chair and leaned forward onto her knees, her keen blue eyes piercing into his. “God, Anya. Don’t you ever let anything rest?” Duante stared at her for a long moment. She was one of his oldest and best friends, but the idea of admitting the full depth of his problems made his stomach ache. She was all strength and swagger, someone nobody had ever bullied in all the long years they’d known each other. Even these days, an ork late in her fourth decade with graying hair, she could twist most people to do her wishes without a thought. He had no doubt that the pilot bringing her here from Chicago had protested every minute but couldn’t bring himself to resist. He was probably still at the airport, wondering how he’d gotten there. “I left because I lost my nerve, alright? That’s all there was to it. You’re imagining things.” She sighed. “This isn’t over, Du. You’ll tell me sometime or other. May as well give up and tell me now.” He shrugged and returned to scanning the market. A figure dimly seen in the rain caught his eye. “Adie! I’m here, Adie,” he yelled through the open door. He’d worried more than he liked to admit that the little Yoruba ork wouldn’t be able to find him in his new shop, but the old one had finally collapsed a week ago. Her head jerked around at his voice. The bag that she’d balanced on it slipped and landed in the mud, spilling gears and other junk everywhere. He almost darted into the rain to help her gather her findings, but, stealing a glance at Anya, settled for watching her pick through the mud. “Friend of yours, Du?” Anya’s keen eyes had taken in the small figure and rejected her as lacking interest; she’d returned to studying him with the intensity of the rain outside. “I’ll make some tea.” He busied himself at that activity, listening with one ear to Adie’s clanking approach. It sounded like she had a lot of things to show him; good, a nice long visit and bargaining session with the undemanding little ork was exactly what his nerves needed. His cyber hands couldn’t shake in reaction, but his stomach was still churning from Anya’s questions. “We dump thing brang,” Adie announced in her atrocious English as she clattered through the doorway. She set down the bag as if it had Dunkelzahn’s lost treasures, carefully wiped her bare feet on the rag hanging beside the door and used another to wipe her face. Her head scarf was dripping but she was grinning from ear to ear. He could tell the instant she noticed Anya. Once again, she became the hesitant little figure he’d first met, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders. He could relate; the first time he’d met Anya, he’d been a lot older than Adie and she’d scared the hell out of him. But at the time, he was falling out of a plane full of people shooting at him. Anya had been one of them. He met Anya’s eyes and jerked his chin towards the door. Her eyes crinkled and she settled deeper into her chair. “Stop scaring her or get out, An,” he said in Or’zet. “You got something for kids now, Du? Hardly like you.” Her voice was mild but the insinuation infuriated him. He knew it was meant to. Damned orks. A half hour later, the tea was gone and Adie had eaten all the cookies he had that weren’t growing mold, and a few that were. He’d bought two broken drone casings, the guts from a completely different Shiawase drone and the blade snapped off a dagger that he could almost swear had some sort of magic associated with it. He’d corrected Adie’s English, teased a few hesitant giggles from her and gotten her to agree to return the next day, to help him fix the drones. Anya had only sat watching them, at first with curiosity and then with a blankness that made him distinctly uncomfortable. Adie shook his hand, gathered up the torn bag with the rejects and headed into the rain again. A small band of area boys flocked around her almost the instant her feet sank into the mud outside his door. He’d never asked, but he knew they were shaking her down for some of the money he’d just paid her. Just the cost of doing business in Lagos, even for people who had almost nothing. “So what are you doing with a little piece of tusker drek like that one,” asked Anya idly. In a moment, fury swept through him so fiercely that he could only stand, clenching his fists. “For the last time: get out.” “I could almost believe you’re serious, when you take that tone, Du.” “I am. God, don’t you ever listen to anyone?” “Always. When they tell me the truth.” A long silence. Duante swallowed a deep breath. His anger was vanishing as fast as it had come. “What are you doing, calling her something like that anyhow, Anya? You haven’t forgotten what you look like, have you,” he offered weakly. “Do you think I can? It’s not like it goes away if you don’t think about it. When I was that little scrap’s age, I kept hoping someone would make me an elf instead.” Duante blinked. Anya had always seemed the epitome of ork pride to him, perfectly happy with her identity. Her large tusks had set the style in Seattle, tattooed into ornate patterns. She even played goblin rock in her spare time, the real hard stuff, not the meek commercial blend that wannabes played in their cars on the way home from the office. Music that could blow your head off. Her thick features and broad forehead gave people the initial impression of brute ugliness, but once you got to know her, Anya had the beauty of perfect integrity. Or something else that he’d never been able to name. Something that, in his cups, he’d laughed at, as making even a crusty old rigger a bad poet. He’d learned over the years that, although the things she said might sting or worse, there was usually an atom of good sense at the bottom of it. Sometimes it took him a lot of digging around in the mess of his own mind to understand her. She wasn’t like that to most people, just her best friends, the people who interested her. So what the hell was he supposed to understand from her accusations just now? Did she think he was a secret pedophile? It was so ludicrous an idea that he rolled his eyes. He stole a glance at her. She was gazing serenely out into the rain as if she’d forgotten his existence. “You think I’m getting too attached to her? God, An, I haven’t forgotten the life that much. She’s not a run. I’m not trying to fix her or make her into something. I just want to give her a chance.” “The second you start trying to fix all that’s wrong with the world, you’d better quit the game. You said that, back in the day. Remember that? When we’d had that bad run and all those kids bought it? You started crying into your pillow over them too? How about all the other starving ork brats on the streets here?” She turned to gaze at him, her broad face sad. “You can’t save them. Hell, usually you’re lucky if you can save yourself and maybe a friend or two. Despite everything you do, we all end up the same place. Some of us faster than others.” “I’m not trying to save all the orks in Lagos. I just want to help one. That’s all.” “Why, Du? It probably won’t work. You’ve never cared anything about helping others that I’ve ever seen in you. She’s probably just going to end up in a shallow grave no matter what you do.” He thought for several long moments. Eventually he admitted, “I don’t know.” Anya stood up, her knees creaking. “I do.” “Care to fill me in?” he asked sarcastically. “No. You’ll figure it out for yourself. Or you won’t.” She shrugged and left. He spent a few satisfying minutes cursing the existence of all orks in Lagos.